GSD Podcast - Unlock Your Team's Potential with CSM Enablement Expert Sumitra Narayanan

Jeff is joined by Sumitra Narayanan who has close to eight years of experience in customer success solutions engineering and technical account management.

Sumitra mentioned that it's important throughout a CSM’s lifecycle - starting from recruitment all through onboarding & ongoing enablement (as processes & products evolve).

The discussion also includes:

• customer Success Enablement - all about streamlining the CSM workflow and equipping them with what they need to be happier, more effective, and add value where it matters most.

• the three pillars of CSA enablement are recruitment (hiring the right talent), onboarding (equipping with a robust plan), and ongoing enablement (constant training & assets).

• the importance of domain knowledge as well as having transferable skills.

• implementing a CES enablement program, even if starting small
  
  Finally, Jeff and Sumitra talked about thought leadership content and business review tools as key components of ongoing enablement that help customers understand the value they're getting from a product or solution.
  You can connect with Sumitra Narayanan https://www.linkedin.com/in/sumitra1/

Listen here

Transcript:

Jeff 00:00

They're all right, Sumitra. Did I say correctly?

Sumitra Narayanan 00:07

Yep, you're good.

Jeff 00:08

I don't know if you heard them all with Carly. But like, beforehand when I was she was like, it's Agar. And I was like, Okay. And she's like Jeff said, it's like Carly Agar. And then I was like, Okay, we're here with Curly Agar. And that was like. I left it on there, because I love people listening to you know, yeah, it's just, it's just funny. I'll do anything for the joke. So anyways, so quick intro, I met you, I think I can't remember who but we were You were commenting on some posts, I don't know if they're mine, or others. And then I looked at your profile. And I, and I reached out and I said, I'd love to chat with you. Because the original idea here for this podcast, was not to be talking with all the CEOs and VPS. And been there, well, this, that's good, and we need to mix it up. But I also just love people who are actually doing the work. And I, you know, for me, I actually still as a fractional person, go in and do that work occasionally. But you know, I can get incredibly biased after 20 plus years about how things should be and stuff like that. And there's all new ways of doing stuff and everything. So we chatted and and I said, Do you have a topic? Do you want to chat about new right? Yes. Be CS enabled. And I'm like, that's fantastic. Because I've only talked about that once with somebody and we and we need to refresh it's been about a year or so and and things are fast but as well. That was just one person's opinion on it. And in in you came up with some concepts when we were talking I really want to dive into but first a quick 32nd Just a little chat about what you're doing these days and and why we should be listening to you talk about being a CSM.

Sumitra Narayanan 01:55

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So at the moment, I have close to eight years of experience in customer success solutions engineering and technical account management as well. In fact, I kind of got into customer success purely by accident. I have a technical background in computer science. And, you know, the first opportunity that I had out of grad school found me so they were looking for their first technical CSM, and since then I've never looked back. So yeah, that opportunity was a clever tap where first technical CSM able to really help build and scale their customer success presence globally. And, you know, fast forward maybe five and a half years or so I ended up at linear e where I actually was, again the first CSM, but this time but the charter to not only be the CSM, but to build and lead the customer success function completely from scratch. Now that was quite a roller coaster quite

Jeff 02:56

as soon as you said for CSM. Well, you probably saw me take down a note because there's a whole podcast. Oh, gosh.

Sumitra Narayanan 03:01

Yeah, I mean, I learned so much. I learned a lot about what works and also a lot about what doesn't work, you know?

Jeff 03:08

That is it. i People all I tell people, the only reason why I know is because I broke everything. Like I've learned so much through failure, because you remember the pain? I know

Sumitra Narayanan 03:21

it's painful, but you know, you learn a lot. And you know, it's a good growing experience, I guess, you know, kind of looking back at it in hindsight and after Linear B now, I actually have just started a job as a manager of the customer success team at breeze which is also actually in the mahr tech space very similar to clever chap. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to potentially becoming a CES expert.

Jeff 03:51

There's no you don't, there's not potential.

Sumitra Narayanan 03:54

Yeah, that's I mean, it's, of course, you know, I'm really happy for what I've done and accomplished so far. But it's a constant learning journey. So yeah, I mean, really happy to be here with you on this podcast, Jeff?

Jeff 04:07

Oh, it's fantastic. I have to ask when you were that first CSM? Were you doing the dreaded support and implementation and everything else?

Sumitra Narayanan 04:14

Yes, yes, yes. 100%. In fact, it was just, you know, it wasn't even like something that we questioned. It was just, Oh, of course, like, we have to do this. Like we're the ones doing this. So I was not only CSM but I was also you know, solutions engineer, you know, same year, tech, technical account manager support lead, oh, my god, like the number of hats that I wore. And, you know, I enjoy writing a lot. So, you know, I was also like, working on the content side quite a bit. You know, putting together technical pieces, you know, is how to use case studies. I mean, I definitely learned a lot and I'm really happy with a lot of the work I've done but of course, I was kind of, you know, pulled in a million different directions.

Jeff 04:58

Specifically with that computer Science degree, which I'm going to immediately play for my daughter because she's going to do computer science. But as it's sort of like learning piano, so you can then go play other instruments, right, like so. There's there's that concept of if you're in that, then everything else is a lot easier, right? But knowing computer science is especially huge. It's probably why you are getting pulled in all these different directions as well, too. So it's it's quite the skill set. So we don't I don't see as many Cs majors in CS. So that's, that's really cool.

Sumitra Narayanan 05:30

The WCS

Jeff 05:32

CS, right. So when did you I'm sure it was in this role. But as you're getting ready for the next when when did you start really lasering in on this concept of CES enablement, and it being a need for all CES?

Sumitra Narayanan 05:47

Yeah. Interestingly, you know, most of my tenure in customer success, I had been working on ces enablement without actually realizing that it was in fact, ces enablement. Yeah, you know, because again, you know, pulled in multiple different directions. Of course, I'm like preparing, like, talk tracks, slide decks, you know, to use for CSMs to use and onboarding, adoption related pursuits. You know, I was working with marketing to produce case studies, one pagers, you know, all kinds of things like that. And so I was doing all of that. And then, kind of fast forward, maybe seven years in or so. And I was, you know, recently interviewing, looking for my next ces opportunity. And we'll be doing some soul searching and thinking about, you know, what aspects of CES do I really enjoy? You know, because ces actually, you know, it's been, you know, it has evolved so much. Like,

Jeff 06:42

there's a lot of it, right? Yeah, it reminds me of when I talk to people in marketing, like marketing is, branding and analytics and demand jet, there's just so much into it. Now, ces gotten there as well, too.

Sumitra Narayanan 06:55

So exactly. So it's, there's such a spectrum of, you know, what you can do in CES, like, if you don't really want to be on the front lines with customers, for instance, but you still want to help, you know, build that CS backbone, for instance, you might go into CS ops, and you know, there's, you know, CS enablement, and then there's maybe like, the more salesy side of things as well, you know, and there's like, you know, the professional services aspect of it, too, and you end up working very closely with CS. So there's just so much in that spectrum. And when I reflected on some of my strengths, what I really enjoyed writing is one of my passions, I also really enjoy coaching and enabling others. And I also love designing process. So I took those aspects, and I really combine them with the fact that I had ces experience, I was like, hey, you know, ces enablement is actually, you know, probably a good home for me. And so when I was interviewing, I actually interviewed for some opportunities that were ces enablement, related as well. And so kind of preparing for those interviews, and taking stock of my experience and what I had done in that, you know, arena without even realizing it made me realize or come to the conclusion that I was really passionate, I still am really passionate about CSS enablement. And I really think that you know, this is the backbone or I guess, like the fundamental, I would say concept to help CSM be the best that they can be. And I think having seen kind of the chaos of startups you know, CSM, you know, putting together talk tracks on the fly, you know, slide decks, like kind of on the fly, like having to like really just, you know, continuously evolve without that, you know, strong I would say explicit support, CS enablement support and kind of going through that pain as well made me realize that hey, we really need to focus and drill down on this and and help CSM with this material, you know, outside of them having to just figure it all out on the fly.

Jeff 08:57

Oh, absolutely. And are you thinking about this as in a new CSM just coming on in which certainly a part of it or versioning, like the whole lifecycle of a CSM,

Sumitra Narayanan 09:07

I would actually say that this is important for the whole lifecycle of the CSM, actually starting up from recruitment of CSM, you know, leading into onboarding of new CSMs into their companies and then you know, there's ongoing enablement as well you know, like, CS process and structure, you know, continuously evolves at various companies, you know, the product evolves, customers evolve, and we need CSM to be able to keep up with that. So it's actually something that is, I would say, super important throughout the lifecycle of a CSM.

Jeff 09:44

So I'm guessing Sorry, I'm just laughing about this scenario and trying to get it out straight but like so I'm guessing that the first day of a CSM at a new job should not be a transition meeting to their new customers from the person.

Sumitra Narayanan 09:58

No, not at all. Oh my god, that just sounds like nightmare because oh my gosh,

Jeff 10:03

I've seen it. Oh my god so bad. It's like, this person is leaving, like, Oh my God, what's higher this other person started and then like it just happens like in the last day it's like, oh, here's your new CSM. And it's just like worst possible scenario. It's just so bad.

Sumitra Narayanan 10:18

Yeah, you just feel like a deer in the headlights. And oftentimes again, I've pretty much exclusively been in startups in the past, right? So there's not even that documentation of, you know, what exactly? Are these customer's use cases? What are their goals? And so you're really like, thrown into the deep end? So yeah, oh my gosh, that's

Jeff 10:36

that call that OJT on the job training. But it is it is, it is not good. And just as before we start getting into your pillars and everything. One of the reasons why it really resonated with me when I was a developer, and then I got moved into like project management, which at the time would be considered implementation of these days. And I was the only develop former developer and I knew how all the ins and outs of this product was. And we were hiring, we're going from like, 30 people to 100 that year. And so one weekend, I just totally like sat down and just wrote like, it's, it's called the pm guide. And it was literally everything you're talking about. It was like screenshots. And when this happens, and if this developer says two weeks, challenge them on and like just all that fun stuff. So I in that just like, you probably use that thing as a template for 10 years after that, and everything. So yeah, so definitely the, it definitely helps do that work once and then just keep refining from it. So so let's get in and talk about these three pillars. And in what's so let's get deep into them here.

Sumitra Narayanan 11:41

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, I can first talk a little bit about, you know, why Customer Success enablement? I mean, why is it and then give a high level overview of the three pillars as well. And so, yeah, so from the CSM perspective, right. CS enablement is really all about streamlining the CSM workflow, and really equipping them with what they need so that they are happier and more effective and kind of speaking to the pain that I experienced in my past, they're not kind of on the fly, like on the job, like inventing things and kind of testing them worse all the time, you know, they're really giving them the material and support to be the best CSMs that they can be. And really add value, you know where it matters most, right? And then on the company perspective, right? CSM enablement is all about improving ultimately about improving the retention and growth of our customer base by again, providing CSM with the enablement or equipment that they need to be the most effective that they can be. And so this takes the shape of three pillars of CSA enablement. And I actually learned about this concept from there's an article out there, which is really insightful. This company called desired path had a chat with Melissa median, who is an expert in the field of sales and CS enablement. And she had put together really smartly put together these three pillars. First one, so the first one is recruitment, right? So it actually starts at the very, very beginning of the CSMs lifecycle where the company should be very intentional about hiring the right talent based on the ideal CSM profile to ensure that their customers are successful. So that's the first pillar. Yeah. recruitment,

Jeff 13:35

it makes total sense. Yeah.

Sumitra Narayanan 13:38

Right. It always starts like from the very beginning, right, otherwise, your

Jeff 13:43

next pillar? Or is the interview process part of that recruitment? Because, especially at startups, you see, there's, there's no, the worst thing you can do. It's also when your customers say the same thing to you like, oh, they just asked me the same question, right? There's no rhyme or reason. And everybody is, for me, if I'm a CSM, and I'm trying to decide whether to go to Company A, B, or C, if a company doesn't have their act together on the interview process, I'm just kind of like, oh, man, that that is that is that what a life gonna be for the next two plus years?

Sumitra Narayanan 14:16

Yeah, yeah, the interview process, again, is very much a part of the recruitment pillar, and I'll definitely speak to it as we you know, dive deeper into the pillars. But yes, it's really important for companies to and I kind of alluded to this one, I spoke about the recruitment pillar at a high level, but it's important for companies to define what their ideal CSM profiles like we keep talking about the ideal customer profile, the ICP and customer success. But it's also important I've realized, to define what your ideal CSM profilers as well, you know, what are the you know, of course, you want somebody who has, you know, probably some CS experience or some transferable skills, but you're also looking for somebody who has as, you know, the right qualities, you know, empathy, you know, like somebody who's a team player, somebody who's proactive, communicative. And so, you know, that really, you know, is the basis for an ideal CSM profile that it's really important for companies to have, and use in their interviewing process to bring on the right CSS, so that they have kind of that right, I want to say like raw material, if you will, to equip, and then you know, build a strong, you know, CS enablement program, and just as, overall a strong CS program,

Jeff 15:38

I love it. And if people haven't trademarked that term, then you should definitely go off there and call ICP, your ideal CSM profile, because a lot of companies, they just don't do it. We just need somebody in here make make sure they're either you have the domain experience, or they're smart or whatever, right. So

Sumitra Narayanan 15:58

yeah, yeah, definitely. And so it really starts from the beginning with recruiting the right books, you know, the ideal CSM profile. And then the second pillar is onboarding, right. So now that these, you know, new CSMs are on board are, well, they're starting to onboard like we actually need to be again, very structured, as structured as we possibly can be to equip CSM with a robust plan to help them ramp up and begin contributing as quickly as possible. Right. So that's the onboarding pillar rate, getting them up to speed with the product, you know, with best practices, you know, best practices in terms of how the CS function at that company operates, you know, domain specific knowledge. So, for instance, I'm the martec space. So you know, it's important for me to be aware of, you know, martec best practices and industry trends. And then finally, that third pillar is ongoing enablement, right. So even existing CSMs need to constantly like, stay on top of, you know, training and assets to be effective in their roles so that, ultimately, the customer success function at the company owns a consistently strong portfolio of value realizing customers, because when your CS team or your CSMs are equipped with what they need to be the best that they can be your customers are successful. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So those are the three pillars.

Jeff 17:25

That's amazing. Let's, let's I wanted to get your perspective on on best practices. And some of it gets into the, you know, we need somebody with domain experience or we need somebody with a lot of CSM experience. Do you feel that? Do you have a certain feeling about which one's more important?

Sumitra Narayanan 17:45

Honestly, you know, I think it can depend on the company and the product and kind of, you know, where that company is in its, you know, I guess evolution right. So, I would say the high level answer is it depends. But classic CS answer, by the way, classic PSN theory, no, but if you are asking me personally, from my experience, yes, domain knowledge is important. So those CS skills, having those CS skills that is important, right, it can really help CSM hit the ground running without too much, you know, like, I guess having to like, needing to, you know, go through this huge learning curve. But at the end of the day, I feel like there's a lot of transferable skills where even if you don't have that CS, explicit CSS background, you can actually take those skills and apply them to the CSS domain, if you're willing to learn and I feel like it's more for me, I'm leaning more towards qualities matter more than domain experience or skills. And when I say qualities, I'm talking about, you know, things like empathy, you know, work ethic, humility, you know, being proactive, reliable, trustworthy, you know, that growth mindset, being able to be scrappy, resourceful. So I would actually lean towards those are more important. I

Jeff 19:10

agree. 1,000% Because those skills are a lot harder to train versus, you know, picking up best and best practices, learning about the industry and things like that. 100% Absolutely.

Sumitra Narayanan 19:23

Yeah, definitely. And you know, like, in the initial days of, you know, when I was interviewing, I realized that I was asking a lot of questions relating to domain experience and ces experience, while I feel like I was missing out on you know, asking those leading or probing questions into, you know, empathy and humility and being proactive. So, for instance, a really good question to ask a potential CSM as you know, how would you say no to a customer and you know, things like that, right? Because that can really say a lot about, you know, like, how well can this person do as a CSM, even if they don't necessary really have that ces experience. So I would actually lean towards qualities are more important because they're actually so much as you said, so much harder to learn and you know, incorporate than, like domain experience.

Jeff 20:14

Absolutely. No, no, that's really great insight. And I love the CSM questions as well, too, if you can find out who are the ones who are just going to say, yes, immediately or then they don't like to say no and oh my god, but you know, if we're getting judged, if we're getting KPIs on renewals, I'm afraid to say no. And then, you know, you got to balance all those those things back and forth and everything. So it really comes out in the interview, whether they have these inherent CSM skills where they're able to push back if they need to be things like that. Absolutely. Awesome. Yeah, for sure. So what is what is? What do you think are some of the hard points about rolling a system like this out? Or maybe having say, What was some of the hard points about putting this together? And then rolling it out to to your team?

Sumitra Narayanan 21:10

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So again, you know, I was sort of doing this, or like putting together this ces enablement program, not even realizing that it was a

Jeff 21:22

program needs to do this, right.

Sumitra Narayanan 21:24

Yeah. So for me, it was really, I think, an unquestionable part of the process of making sure that my CSM were effective. And a lot of you know how I got to arrived at the need for this program was just seeing how, you know, I was at a startup and you know, the CSM is on my team, where, you know, we were, we were all sort of just figuring out stuff on the fly in terms of what works for customers during onboarding, what works to get them to adopt. And so, you know, we were doing so much of this on the fly stuff that we really, you know, we're not able to be very predictive about, you know, how are we going to do in the long term, right, with retaining and growing our customers, right? Because we're always like, constantly, like, you know, changing your approach and doing things on the fly, like, you don't really know, like, Are you being effective? Like, are you going to continue to be effective? You know,

Jeff 22:21

I'm sure churn numbers can tell you if some stuffs being afraid, yeah, yeah.

Sumitra Narayanan 22:27

Oh, yes. Yes, for sure. And, you know, unfortunately, the thing with churn numbers, though, is that they're lagging indicators. So you're kind of like, realize after the fact, and you're like, Oh, oops, well, that didn't work, okay. And then, but then if you, if you keep looking at that, and you continue to, like be doing stuff on the fly, you're not really like, you know, taking stock of the problem and, and solving for it in a systematic way, right. And so I was like, Okay, enough of this sort of just being all over the place, like, we actually need to be very intentional, and, you know, proactive in determining what our approach will be with customers. And for that we need our CSM to be enabled with, you know, material, that helps them to be the best that they can be material training tools, you know, like the whole gamut. Yep, to help them actually be effective. So that's when I started putting all of this together in order to elevate our CS function. And so that's when I kind of started thinking about okay, like, you know, what is the ideal CSM profile for recruitment? You know, like, how can we help, you know, new CSMs get up to speed quickly, so that they can begin contributing as quickly as possible because being at a startup, we really just didn't have as much of the luxury of time. So we needed CSMs, to be able to get up to speed as quickly as possible with the product and, you know, how we as the CES function operated, so, you know, what material do I need to put together to help CSMs on board, so you know, and again, we were a startup, so I put together a spreadsheet with you know, you know, helping CSMs get up to speed with the tools that we used in our CSR, and the process that, you know, we were following and, you know, product training and, you know, like, material that they could go through in terms of how do we approach onboarding, how do we approach adoption, how do we approach renewals and expansions and it was sort of very limited, a very limited amount of material because again, start up you know, we were just like beginning to put all of this but kind of, you know, correlating it together and bringing it in one space or like one specific area for new CSMs to learn I think that was a big win for us maybe it sounds kind of trivial, you know, to like no no bigger companies, but that was a big I think first step towards like putting together our CES enablement program, right? Yeah, it's

Jeff 24:59

fine because cuz I don't know if this happened to you, but like, when you hire somebody with some experience, they come in and they ask all these questions and you're like, Yeah, we're new we don't really have. It's so embarrassing. It's, it's so bad. So if you because that was a spreadsheet now, let's just say, you know, ideal scenario, right? unlimited budget. How would you structure the tools all this fun stuff videos? How would you put together that that CSM onboarding? You know day by day zero through I don't know day nine or whatever you want to go I hate throwing end dates because it's should be continuous but yeah, they like you know submitter come in here and just just put together whatever you want, and what would that look like? Oh,

Sumitra Narayanan 25:47

yeah, yeah, definitely. And I've also actually mentioned this in that CS insider article that I

Jeff 25:52

wrote, which we'll link to in the shownotes. Absolutely, yeah,

Sumitra Narayanan 25:56

definitely. But yes, unlimited budget automatically means I would certainly invest in a learning management system. Having experienced what onboarding with, you know, a robust learning management system is like add Brees, for instance, because braids is actually a much bigger company than, you know, the startup that I was the startups that I, you know, were in previously. And so they actually have a very structured, comprehensive onboarding that they delivered through a learning management system, and kind of, you know, seeing the difference between that and you know, what I've gone through at startups, again, not definitely not, you know, like blaming startups, I mean, you can learn a lot at a startup. But of course, it does come with kind of that chaos, right. So, you know, seeing what it is like, in a very streamlined format, delivered by a learning management system, I would absolutely invest in one of those, and start putting all of the material in that. And, in fact, the learning management system also has like a content management system integrated, that's even better. You can really mix it up and you know, have like training videos, you know,

Jeff 27:10

surveys, quizzes, the whole thing. Yep.

Sumitra Narayanan 27:14

Yeah. Because that makes it so much easier, right, because definitely, one of the gaps we had in that spreadsheet was, you know, I didn't really have anything, like a knowledge check in there. And I feel like that's so important to be able to, like recap, and, and really test, you know, this new CSMs understanding of Have they really understood the material where there are gaps, so they can easily address those as quickly as possible. So, I would certainly invest in an LMS. And, you know, like, start curating material to put into that LMS to make it much easier on not only the CSM, but the company like to help them feel like, okay, like, I've got this, you know, amazing tool that is going to help enable my CSMs as quickly as possible.

Jeff 27:58

Oh, no, no, that's, that's huge. And that could, that's a huge project, you're just putting that all together, and the content and all that stuff and everything, but if people realize that they would ultimately get, you know, better renewal rates, better internal employee satisfaction, and all that fun stuff. People would make the investment and especially when you're small, and you don't have the budget, it's, it's harder to do absolutely, yeah.

Sumitra Narayanan 28:24

Yeah, for sure. So I would say definitely, you know, start somewhere, like, if you're at a startup or a smaller company that doesn't have the resources, you know, it may not make sense to, you know, get a learning management system right away. But if you put in the groundwork, through even something as simple as a spreadsheet, you at least have a starting point. And, you know, over time, you'll begin to understand where the gaps are. And as you grow and evolve, you will know exactly how to implement all of this material in a learning management system. And, and you'll be able to, you know, move forward from there. So, absolutely,

Jeff 29:00

yeah, you can, you know, a lot of companies these days have confluence, I mean, you can certainly go in and, you know, influence thing together as as a in between or before you can do the the LMS. And then you can just keep adding to it and things like that as well, too. So

Sumitra Narayanan 29:14

great. Oh, yeah, certainly.

29:16

Any, any other strategies or tips and tricks along the way that and I'll link to it in the article that you might have referenced in there.

Sumitra Narayanan 29:27

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I can probably give an example of how I approached, you know, onboarding, the onboarding pillars. So sure, like I mentioned, I basically had this spreadsheet that I put together, you know, it's, you know, an onboarding plan for new CSMs where that spreadsheet had mapped out a checklist of items to get through in the form of meetings, audio video recordings, and even live meetings saying, hey, like, reach out to this team member they can train Case scores, they can train you insurance zero, so on so forth. So I had put together this plan with a checklist for about, you know, two weeks. So the first two weeks, you know, considering an eight hour workday. Yep. So this plan covered, I would say what are some of the important areas in onboarding, so that is tool onboarding, process training, and, you know, training resources and not just the product, but domain specific training and, you know, training in terms of CMS best practices. And so with this onboarding plan in place, right, and really, the need for it was surfaced by the fact that the first CSM, I had brought on board, we didn't have such a spreadsheet at all. And so it definitely was a little bit more complicated and messy, you know, to get this CSM up to speed, even though she was super smart, and she was really up to the task, and she hit the ground running, I felt like, Okay, I need to do more, as you know, the leader of the CS team to, you know, get them to a point where they are ready to contribute as quickly as possible. And they have a, I guess, as comfortable of an experience getting to that point. Right. And so that's, you know, what prompted me to put together this, you know, a spreadsheet. So second CSM onwards, you know, I provided the spreadsheet and I said, Hey, like this should help you, you know, get up to speed. And so when I looked at the data like this first CSM, it took about a month for her to, I would say, ramp up and get to a point where she could contribute, versus with a spreadsheet, you know, as simple as it seemed, the second CSM was able to get up to speed faster in about, you know, two weeks. And so even though it was sort of, you know, the data wasn't necessarily perfect. And the spreadsheet was also not perfect. We were just starting out with this approach and seeing how it worked out. Yep. It did. Like I could see like, we could see the difference in terms of what the CSM ramp up time was like

Jeff 32:03

2x improvement.

Sumitra Narayanan 32:04

Absolutely, yeah. 2x improvement..

32:06

If you think about a team, when you're scaling up, and you got to bring on like 10 people or even you start growing and growing and growing. If you don't have this in place, then that it it just really eats away at everything, right customer satisfaction, budgets, all of that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

Sumitra Narayanan 32:23

exactly. And, you know, we were also beginning to see that reducing CSM, ramp up time ultimately was leading to increased ARR stability as well. And, you know, therefore, improved customer retention. So we were beginning to see that data kind of, you know, falling in place as well. And as we scaled, you know, it was just quite clear that we needed to invest more time and in putting together this, this onboarding plan for new CSM. So I would say, you know, even though it wasn't like this perfect, robust, streamlined approach with an LMS, it was a start, and it made a difference. And so I would encourage everybody who is, you know, looking to, you know, get started putting a CES enablement program in place, to even just start small, you know, start incrementally with baby steps and keep evolving, because you will definitely see the small wins, and you will continue to improve over time, you just got to start somewhere,

33:19

can't wait for the Big Bang, you just gotta just iteratively roll it out. I'm really glad you brought up the increased AR actually was going to ask that, but then I was like, I don't want to put you on the spot. Because you're like, now it's just rolling. So for the first time, but that's fantastic that you started seeing actual customer metrics that were being improved. And, yeah, that's great.

Sumitra Narayanan 33:40

Yeah, certainly. So again, even if you are kind of just starting out, you know, it's always nice to try to tie it back to you know, your big data, you know, your Northstar metrics. And, again, your data may not be like, perfect in the beginning, you're still trying to, like understand, like, you know, benchmarks and where you stand as a CSS function and all of that, but, you know, like, you'll, you'll start seeing patterns over time. So you know, gotta start somewhere and always keep that high level in mind.

Jeff 34:09

Awesome. Well, that's, that might be a great place to end. But before we do that, I want to ask if you had any other sort of inputs or things top of mind that you wanted to to add in?

Sumitra Narayanan 34:20

Yeah, definitely. Maybe I'll say, you know a few words about the ongoing enablement pillar as well.

Jeff 34:27

That would be great. That's great. Yeah,

Sumitra Narayanan 34:29

yeah. Because we definitely spoke about you know, the ideal CSM profile, you know, getting, you know, the right, basically being able to hire the right talent, which really helps in enabling them as well. And so we also spoke about, you know, the onboarding pillar of you know, getting these new CSM is up to speed and in a place where they can contribute as quickly as possible and you know, where the learning experience is as comfortable for them as possible. And then of course, there's also the ongoing na Woman pillar of being able to continuously train and support even existing CSM is because your product is going to evolve, your customers are going to evolve, their use cases are going to evolve. And so it's really important to this isn't just like a one and done thing, right? Like after onboarding, that's it, you know,

Jeff 35:23

and that is actually what I typically see, we got to watch. And that's it. So, the continual training, especially in startup land, where just products changing every two weeks or so, yeah,

Sumitra Narayanan 35:34

yeah, and so it's really important to be able to provide, you know, continuous training in terms of tools, you know, process, you know, ces best practices, like your function best practices, because your function is constantly evolving to support your evolving product and customers, you know, training in, you know, again, the domain is continuously evolving, as well. So domain specific training. And, yeah, in terms of the product as well, the product is also continuously evolving. So, you know, being able to set a cadence, you know, ideally with your product marketing team, or I guess whoever in your company is responsible for that. It's really nice to partner with them and help establish a cadence for all of this training. And one, you know, really important aspect. Another really important aspect of this ongoing enablement pillar is tangible assets. So, having customer playbooks for various touch points in the customer journey, so slide decks, talk tracks, you know, you're not just figuring stuff out on the fly as a CSM, you know exactly what the talk track is for various, you know, customers situations and scenarios. So, you know, that's an important type of asset. So customers, playbooks, competitive battle cards that are meant for customer success, not sales.

Jeff 36:57

Exactly. So funny, because it does come up exactly. Also what our peers in my domain doing like, oh, yeah, well, we have that right here. Absolutely.

Sumitra Narayanan 37:06

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so the way that you you need to alleviate, you know, objections or, you know, do objection handling as a CSM is very different from how you might do it if you were in sales. And so, you know, I'm speaking from the personal experience and pain of having to borrow, you know, from, you know, competitive battle cards that were designed for sales and you don't want to sound all you know, salesy, yeah, you definitely want to lead with empathy. And of course, also have that high level, you know, understanding of okay, like, I need to deliver value to the customer. So competitive battle cards that are meant for customer success are so so helpful, you know, objection handling assets for various situations. That's the type of asset that I think is really important within this ongoing enablement pillar and then external facing material that you can share with customers. So feature one pagers use case how to use you know, technical pieces, you know, you can work very closely with your, again, your product marketing team, maybe your content team, learning and development of, you know, the company is, you know, big enough to have, you know, that sort of, you know, org. So that's really important and helpful, too. Because, you know, again, speaking from the pain of you know, customers will often ask, you know, why, you know, what can I do with this feature, I see that it's there, I kind of understand where it's going to get me but how do I make use of this and constantly having to like put together like snippets on the fly to share with customers and not having like a, you know, like one stop shop for me to like get that information or for the CSM, to get that information shared with customers, that was painful. So again, having this you know, really nice, you know, finessed external facing material that you can share with customers. And then of course, thought leadership content that, of course, benefits the company as well, you know, you work together with marketing to build customer case studies. You know, snackable is like really short snippets that are really impactful and can teach customers, you know, how to elevate their use of the platform. So thought leadership content. And finally, like business review tools, right? To make it really easy to communicate the value your solution is providing to customers. I mean, you that is super important. And that's something I learned, again, the painful way, like if your customers are not aware of the ROI they're getting from your product, and they will renew absolutely not better than you and it's super painful, because, you know, there's only so much you can scramble to say, but this this that, you know, like you you saw this, you did that or your team achieved this, you know, at the last minute, so if you're proactive about constantly making customers aware of the value they're seeing, then they're much more likely to renew and, you know, again, as your CS team scales and you add on more customers, there's only so much time that CSMs have to like manually put together like an E Er deck or Business Review, material or calculate the ROI. So if we're able to provide, like plug and play Business Review templates, you know, like a little number crunching machine to like put together like what the ROI is. And this is something that we were actually working on building on my previous startup, this ROI calculator where, you know, we had all of this data on the back end, all we needed to do was to, like, you know, work with engineering to write a script to really spit out, like, what are the improvements that the customer is seeing and tie it back to their ROI? So again, super hacky, but it's a start. Right? Right, right. Yeah. And

Jeff 40:40

what I love it, I your CV, or your CS background is coming out there. So great to see there. In Kent, you know, 1000 times agree on on all those points, especially about just providing value along the way, and just always, not waiting for the Big E br QBR. Right. If you're seeing, you know, as I always say, if you're, you're meeting with somebody, and they're like, oh, let's we really want to see some movement in this area. And then a couple of weeks later, you see this growth, like, don't wait two months to show them that right Wait, like, hey, quick loom video, look at this here, you need to respond, you know, just here you go. Absolutely.

Sumitra Narayanan 41:15

Yeah, yeah, it's as simple as that. And so you know, being able to enable CSM says, Hey, here's a tool that, you know, I worked with engineering to create that just picks up the customers are away. Now all you need to do is plug in the customer's account IDs and get you know these numbers and start sharing it with your customers like, you know, with a little bit of automation. So that saves so much time for CSMs. And immediately, you know, helps their customers understand the value they're getting. And therefore like this is what I mean, like this is the crux or essence of enablement, because you're saving CSN so much time, and also still helping them be so effective at their

Jeff 41:56

rates. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially if they're, you know, you've got 30 customers, and you're trying to prepare all this data, to have a new script like that, or just whatever, you have these tools in place to be able to enable them to be able to actually have those value conversations. Because the meantime, they're not able to focus on the value there. They're having to do all this legwork to get all of this data and all this Melody's points. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly.

Sumitra Narayanan 42:20

Exactly. So you know, customers are, are now understanding the value they're getting your CSMs are not burning out. So yeah, when when

Jeff 42:29

tastic. So let's, let's do this. Because I just looked at the clock, I was like, oh my god, we're still talking. Let's I'll link to your LinkedIn profile. And we'll put a link to your CS insider work as well too. Long as quick questions, since we're heading into the least for us here in Boston, the deep winter and just got a snowstorm. What is your big winter plan for you any fun stuff going on? That's non CSP weighted.

Sumitra Narayanan 42:59

You know what I actually just got back from that fun stuff. So I was actually traveling, you know, towards the end of November, up until the end of December. So I actually went to Singapore, I went to Bali in Indonesia. And then I went to India, which is where a lot of my family is located. And so it was really nice to I guess, escaped the deep winter of, I mean, I know I'm in California, and you know, I shouldn't really be complaining compared to like a Boston winter or anything like that. But, you know, nevertheless, it was really nice to be kind of away from like, the cold cold winter and kind of be in these more tropical settings where, you know, kind of winter is a nice time to go because it's going to not be as hot and humid. So it's really nice to go there. You know, travel, you know, see some new places relax a little bit, you know, kind of disconnect from all the hustle and bustle. And so Joe's family and friends as well. So yeah, that was my fun winter. And now I am kind of back to reality. You know, getting up to speed I

Jeff 44:02

can tell you're all business here just ready to go in and just, that's awesome. It says we got a good break does now you're like super ready to go in and start tackling all these issues and everything.

Sumitra Narayanan 44:13

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think it's super important for everybody to recharge even though I know it can be so hard to disconnect. I feel like it really does make a huge difference. Oh, absolutely.

Jeff 44:24

Absolutely. That's a great point to leave off. We're going to we'll hold you hold on for a second. I'll stop the recording. But thanks so much. And we really appreciate all this insight and we'll make sure to link out to a bunch of this stuff. So just hold on one quick second here. Sure.